in his eyes
by fantasia of solace
Summary: No, no, no, it's all wrong. This isn't how the story should end. —Tetsu/Ruri


**author's note** wrote this a while ago, figured i'd put this up. i'm feeling lazy today. can't remember if i've edited this before. oh well, i'll do it now.

**pairings **tetsu/ruri; nobori/ruri; kyouhei/mei

**inspirations** just added the ending, it's inspired by Trylan Aire's one day we'll be clouds. go read it; it's great. well, at least i think so.

**warning** the established crack pairing might offend you. turn back now if you're going to hate this. plus, japanese names.

**disclaimer** don't own it.

* * *

><p><strong>in his eyes<strong>

_no, no, no, it's all wrong. this isn't how the story should end._

* * *

><p>His heart swells unexpectedly at the sight of her. Every time she leaves, his heart <em>wants more.<em> It's like his time with her is not enough, and he's craving for her over and over. He's quite dense, so he turns to other people for their opinion.

Kyouhei says it's love.

_Is it,_ he wonders.

* * *

><p>He eventually works with her for one of his films, <em>Under the Carpet of Stars <em>(well, it shouldn't have been much of a surprise since they're both rising stars in the acting industry). It satisfies his needs and he feels perfectly at ease knowing that she's there, especially that one time when she invites him to meet up with her at Café Sonata to rehearse their lines.

"Oh, you lucky duck!" Kyouhei laughs when he told him the news.

* * *

><p>Their relationship grows over the years as they are constantly paired up to film together (much to his delight). Every so often, they meet up unanimously at the same café and the manager had even started calling them a couple after some time, much to <em>her<em> embarrassment (he doesn't feel that emotion at all, because she's the only reason he's there).

"No, no, we aren't a couple," she explains, a bright blush staining her cheeks as she attempts to erase the thought from the man's head. "We're just best friends."

He puts on an awkward smile and plays along, but at the back of his mind he can't help but admit that he wishes the manager is right.

* * *

><p>She makes friends with Kyouhei some time later after the incident, and it turns out that she's good friends with the visor-wearing boy's girlfriend, Mei. He becomes familiar with Mei too and after a few weeks, she calls him and teases him mercilessly until a confession's made. At first, he thinks it's Kyouhei, but she assures him that she sees the signs herself, and that her boyfriend has nothing to do with the matter.<p>

"So, what are you going to do about her? When're you going to confess? She's not going to be waiting for you forever, you know," she grins devilishly at him.

"S-shut up!"

* * *

><p>After a while, he's sure she feels the same way, but he can never be sure, and Kyouhei's never wrong when he says that he has zero perception of others' feelings. There are a few not-so-subtle hints, he supposes. When she talks to him, there's always this spark in her eyes that makes him glow with happiness as she rattles on, no matter how boring the topic is. When they walk side by side to the filming studio from the café, their hands would brush ever so slightly.<p>

Sometimes, he wishes that shadows don't exist, so that he can tell if she's blushing.

* * *

><p>It comes as a stab in his heart when he sees the magazine article about the supposed scandal where she is dating one of the subway bosses from Raimon City's Battle Subway, Nobori. Frantically, he confronts her (in the sense of validating the authenticity of the report) under the guise of overwhelming concern that the media is spreading false rumours.<p>

"Oh God, how did this happen?"

He heaves a sigh of relief inwardly, knowing that it was not true. _Just a rumour. There's nothing to be worried about. Stupid press and their stupid rumours. Shouldn't have been worried at all._ But what she says next is truly worrying.

"We didn't want this to be known so soon…"

The revelation is earth-shattering.

* * *

><p>He spends the next few months cold and lonely despite being surrounded by a constant stream of directors, actors and other important filming crew members. The only thing that keeps him warm is her presence, cheesy as it sounds, but she has subsequently been absent from his films, apparently taking 'a vacation'.<p>

He jams the buttons in his Xtransciever in hopes of reaching her but she never picks up. Desperate, he contacts Mei but even Mei does not know where she's gone, saying she left, merely stating that she's going for a holiday to some unspecified destination.

The tears he's been holding back for so long spill from his eyes as he slams down the device, trying to remember the happy times they had together.

* * *

><p>"Thanks for the clue, Mei. I appreciate it."<p>

_"__It isn't any problem at all. I'm worried for her too. Please call me when you find her."_

"I will."

Mei smiles wearily, which makes him wonder if she has been sleeping well at all ever since her disappearance. Her face fades into a curtain of black and he drops his hand to his side, the other reaching for a Pokéball.

"Faye, take me to Karakusa."

* * *

><p>He grips the railing tightly, holding back the tears that sting his eyes as the wind whips past him fiercely, howling in his ears. He arrives a minute too late and she has left with her trusty Pokémon, so the man had said.<p>

A minute is all it took for her to slip away.

Rain pelts down from the skies, and he wonders if the Gods are mourning for him too.

* * *

><p>She finally returns to showbiz a few weeks later. His search has been fruitless with no sign of her anywhere in the region, so naturally, it comes as a shock to him initially when he catches sight of her on the set.<p>

"Ruri-chan!"

She turns her head slowly to meet his joy-filled eyes, her own ones looking quite uncharacteristically blank. They usually brim with an emotion of some sort — exuberance most of the times he has seen her, discomfort when the manager mistook them as an item, and rage when she first saw the magazine article.

This is not her.

Or at least, this is no longer the same person he knows.

She was always one to wear her heart on her sleeve, to open up to a friend when feeling down. He supposes she was always too easy to read. But this version of her is completely the opposite _— _this one wears a mask over her face, far too elusive for his liking.

"Hello," she greets quietly, bobbing her head. Her mannerisms are still intact. "Do…do I know you?"

* * *

><p><em>"<em>_I—I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, but…it—it was for the best. She—they were on the subway train battling w-when the train crashed and…w-well, you probably figured out the rest already…Nobori, he—he recovered his memories a while ago, but she—she…" _Mei lowers her eyes regretfully on the other side of the line.

He resists the urge to punch the walls and scream in agony. Instead, he sinks against the wall, ignoring Mei's concerned calls, blending into the sea of people around him in Hiun.

These days, he resembles a deranged man more than the pop star he should have been. Now, out on the streets, he's hardly recognisable. It takes quite a lot of skill to tell him apart from the rest of the crowd, for he now looked almost…plain, as if he's just another cloud floating in the sky.

The big blue sky.

She was the Sun, he was a cloud. He's still a cloud, but the Sun's gone.

The only thing he can do is let out a strangled cry of agony which goes unheard under the rhapsody of the pandemonium.

* * *

><p>They progress as friends after a couple of months, since he's one of the few who visits her regularly. Fans turn up outside her house where she's recuperating from time to time but he always chases them off with his Pokémon. It seems strange at first, because they have never been used for violence. Rather, they are accessories and comrades in filming, or in some cases such as Faye's, transportation.<p>

One day, Nobori turns up at her doorstep, looking for her.

He opens the door and doesn't quite know how to react. The man is polite and not rude in the slightest way, but something about him makes his blood boil with fury. Somehow, in his eyes, the blame falls on the man in front of him.

"You bastard!" he roars, grabbing the collar of his trench coat. "How dare you—"

"Tetsu," a voice commands authoritatively as a scrawny hand grabs him firmly. "Stop it. Let's go."

"You don't understand, Kyouhei!"

He never comes to the point of realisation that he's the one who doesn't understand.

* * *

><p>Nobori visits her again. As much as he wants to beat him up, he can't, because Kyouhei and Mei won't let him. In fact, they always anticipate his reactions so well up to the point that they go out of their way to arrange for him to run some errands out of town today, making him leave just minutes before Nobori is expected to arrive at the apartment.<p>

He knows they are trying their best to keep him out of trouble. He knows they are lying when they come up with excuses for him to leave. He very much wants to yell at them for attempting to trick him, but he _knows_ it's for his own good, he _knows_ they have their reasons, and he just_ can't _bring himself to hurt them.

Still, when he hears that she has forgotten even Nobori, a spark of hope was lights up in his heart unknowingly. A glimmer of light inside the tunnel of darkness. Where there is darkness, there will always be light after all, no matter how deep he has sunk into the black, no matter how faint it is.

He laughs bitterly, because he's just messed up like that, hoping against hope that he can claim her heart one day now that her world has been reset to the point where he has a chance again.

_It's as if he's thankful the accident ever happened._

* * *

><p>Half a year later, they are a couple. 'They' being her and Nobori, not him and her.<p>

He know it was coming, he just refuses to admit it every time he sees the signs.

She slips away from him so gracefully, their fingers lacing together for the briefest of seconds before they let go of each other and he falls, falls far away into some place where he ceases to exist. Some deep abyss where no one gives a damn about his existence, where he is left to fend for his life alone.

Sailing on the wind, she drifts further and further away from him, memories fading into the untouched archives, beginning with someone else. Someone else who isn't him.

Bitter tears slid down his face.

He has lost, even after holding on to that tiny thread of hope for so long until his whole body is numb from exhaustion. Even after that, disappointment is the only thing waiting for him at the end of the day.

He wants to light up the Earth on fire and make it burn, burn into ashes. He wants to see every last person being consumed by the fire and burnt into a crisp. He wants the Earth to collapse before him.

For a moment, he lets himself believe that she's his, that she'll come and save him _— _that's funny, because in fairy tales, it should be the other way around, shouldn't it? But it doesn't matter to him anymore, as long as they end up together at the end of the story.

But what if the fairy tale has never existed in the first place?

_It was only a dream._

* * *

><p>It's raining again, just like that day.<p>

He's all alone, soaked to the skin, standing in the rain.

He's never liked the rain, but now he faces the sky, welcoming the rain with open arms.

* * *

><p><strong>last words<strong> review, please? tell me what you think, just don't flame. see spelling or grammar errors? please tell me. sometimes i feel like i'm reading too fast, which can also be called skimming.


End file.
